


They Are Leaning Out For Love (They Will Lean That Way Forever).

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 2013 Not Prime Time, Canon Era, Character Study, Leonard Cohen Lyrics, POV Second Person, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without you, the world will go on turning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Are Leaning Out For Love (They Will Lean That Way Forever).

**Author's Note:**

  * For [halfeatenmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/gifts).



> Happy Not Prime Time, halfeatenmoon! The title is from Suzanne by Leonard Cohen.

Yet you want it. 

There is no hope of attaining it, yet you want it.

You watch him, her, them. They have everything you don't, but he always has. He is not a man for you, he is too high, too different. Once you might have been for him, but even then, maybe not. Even then, you were yourself. Even then, you were an innkeeper's daughter, and him a Baron. Even then, you could not aspire to obtain him.

And her. She is beauty while you are beast; an uncomfortable reversal. Are you the villain of this play, you wonder. Are you ugly so they may seem more beautiful, are you alone so they may be together, are you only ever their shadow? It's not a pleasant reality, being the comparison. But here you are.

Once, things were different and she wished for a castle on a cloud, away from all the life and stink and pain around her; an orphan's heaven, though she wasn't an orphan. You're no orphan either, though there are times you wish you could be. Your brothers were thrown away, but you were not. You contribute, you have value. You could leave, but there is family, there is Montparnasse, there is sometimes bread to eat. Sometimes.

You go begging for your father, trapped into lies, and you know how to seem someone else. You can use your looks to prey on the rich, siphoning them of money as Montparnasse does of blood. Your face is an asset in this and you aren't a killer, just a thief, and it never bothered you, not really, until Marius. Marius and his gentleman's poverty of pride. He could be rich, but doesn't want to be. He's poor, but not like you. He can eat his pride, and you are starving.

If you'd known that loving him would have changed you so much, maybe you wouldn't have approached him, maybe you wouldn't have shown him your brains, your skills. You can write and you are proud of it, but your words are a thief's words. You can warn him about the police, but you can't give him what she can. She's a gentleman's daughter now and you are forever a Thenardier.

You are crime so they may be law. You are low so they may be high. You cannot reach them. You must turn aside and find another mountain to climb. If you want.

Yet you want him.

You could hate her if you wanted to; you certainly disliked her as a child. That she could come back into your life is a farce only there to remind you how low you have sunk, but maybe it's the other way around. Maybe you are the unwelcome element in her life, you the reminder of her pain. She reminds you of your present, you remind her of your past. Both are equally unpleasant.

And now she is the rich one, with him following her around. Now she has servants and a future. Now she is the beautiful lady, a fitting wife for the beautiful man. And you? You have nothing, you are no one, you are Eponine Thenardier. You have been told that there is nobility in suffering, but you do not see it.

You want him and Monsieur Marius is not for ones like you, but you still love him despite it. You still help him, still protect him. Love can be love all alone in the darkness, where shadows and thieves and Thenardiers live. Love does not need a bonfire, or riches, or new dresses. Love is just love.

And Paris is on the brink, whispers and bullets and revolution in the air like cholera. You could die. He could die. She could die. You all could die and would it matter? Your death, certainly not. No one would miss you, just another dead girl on the streets of Paris. But they would be missed. Be mourned. He has family he does not speak to and rarely speaks of, but he is kind and you think, someone must have loved him, for him to be so good. Someone must have loved him and protected him and brought him up to be kind.

No one brought you up to be kind.

If he went to the barricade and died, he would be mourned. She won't be going near a barricade, too rich for that. You could be with him without her. At his end, he would be with you, not her. She would forsake him in his hour of need; you never would.

If you died with him, would you be remembered? The urchin who shielded him through battle and who died with him, that would almost be a romance. That would almost be love. And that would be all right, wouldn't it? You could like that, dying with him. You can't live with him, so you may as well die with him.

You could live without him, but you wouldn't want to. You lived before you met him, and that wasn't a life worth living. Is there a life after him? You can't know.

What would it be like, to discover a world without him? Wander through alleyways and he is not there, his coat old and worn but his face forever young? A sunset and the night comes and then the dawn, and he is still not there. If you want to live, you must discover this world. You must find yourself washed up on its shores, alone, bereft, naked. You must cloth yourself in something other than your dreams and your hunger. You will find an animal you do not recognize. It will lead you to a river. You will look into its clean waters and see your face.

You can discover this land, set sail in the morning, leave it all behind. You're dying anyway, so what's the point of dying here? Die somewhere else. Die on the shores of the new land, choke to death on the plants, be poisoned by the water. Die here, die there, what does it matter, just go.

But it does matter, and still he matters. A new world is there for you, but you don't want it. You want him. And he is in your world and so you must stay. You know you can leave, you know you never could. What else is there for you? There's no new world out there for the winning, not for you, not for Eponine. There's only this old one, well-known, well-hated. Marius may find a new world, he may create it with his bride, and their new world will be their perfect home and his grandfather will welcome them. His grandfather would never see you, not even if you looked him in the eye and introduced yourself.

Of all the dying girls who dreamed of a world they can't have, you are nothing special. You're not a good person, but you're trying. You could be beautiful if you had the money to be; until then, you're not. He doesn't have money, but still he is beautiful. Still he shines. And still you love him, fiercely and consuming. You have nothing filling you but love and obsession, if you give it up, you'll fall, a puppet with cut strings. You need either food or love, and you have so little food, so love will have to do.

But you can't eat love for all you try, and still you dream. You walk alone at night, the streets your only shelter and a poor one at that. When you close your eyes, you can pretend he is there with you, wandering through the night like you are one of its secrets. You can imagine his hand in yours, his wrist pressing against yours, your legs in step with each other. You would breathe in tandem and become one together, one wanderer, one dreamer, one dream. When you lose your way in the dark, you close your eyes and his arms are around you. You do your best to guide him during the day, it's only fitting that he guides you at night.

And you know it's only in your mind, and that's not enough, but it's all you'll get, so it'll have to last. Why should love be any different? You can feed it on scraps. It's all the same, it all treats you the same. Food. Love. There's never enough, not for you.

And day by day, you're dying.


End file.
